Latest / Solopreneur Sessions with Fexingo: One-Person Businesses, Freelancing, and Independent Work / How a Solopreneur Used a Simple Pricing Page to Double Revenue
Transcript
- Lucas: Jenna Moretti is a freelance UX designer based in Portland. Last year, she was making about sixty thousand dollars a year, working thirty-five to forty hours a week, and feeling pretty stuck. Luna: That's not a bad income, but the hours to income ratio sounds like she was trading time for money pretty hard. Lucas: Exactly. And she'd been at it for three years. The standard freelance story — more clients, more hours, but not more profit. Then she made one change that doubled her revenue in six months. Luna: Just one change? Lucas: She rewrote her pricing page. That's it. She didn't get new clients or change her service offerings. She just changed how she presented price. Luna: Okay, I need to hear the before and after. Lucas: Before: a simple table. Three tiers labeled 'Basic', 'Standard', 'Premium'. Each had a bullet list of deliverables and an hourly rate. Basic was seventy-five dollars an hour, Standard was a hundred, Premium was a hundred fifty. And a note saying 'typical projects range from 20 to 40 hours'. Luna: That's basically a menu. Here's what you get for this price. Lucas: Right. And it invited comparison shopping. Clients would look at the lists and pick the cheapest option. After, she completely restructured it. She removed hourly billing entirely. Instead, she listed three project scopes: 'Quick Win' at two thousand dollars flat, 'Full Redesign' at eight thousand, and 'Strategic Partnership' at twenty thousand. Luna: So she went from hourly to project-based, and added a really high anchor. Lucas: Exactly. The anchoring effect is well documented in behavioral economics. If you show a twenty-thousand-dollar option first, the eight-thousand-dollar one feels reasonable. And the two-thousand-dollar one feels like a steal. Luna: But did anyone actually buy the twenty-thousand-dollar tier? Lucas: Yes. Two clients in the first six months. And that alone added forty thousand dollars — more than half her previous annual revenue. But the bigger shift was psychological. Luna: How so? Lucas: She changed the framing from 'you're paying for my time' to 'you're investing in an outcome'. Each tier described the problem it solved, not the hours it took. Quick Win was 'a two-week sprint to fix your conversion bottleneck'. Full Redesign was 'a complete user experience overhaul for your web app'. Strategic Partnership was 'embedded design leadership for your growth phase'. Luna: That makes the client think about value, not cost. And it positions her as an expert, not a commodity. Lucas: Right. She also added social proof right on the page — short testimonials that tied specific results to each tier. For Quick Win, a client said 'our conversion rate went up 22 percent in two weeks'. For Full Redesign, another said 'our user satisfaction score jumped from 68 to 91'. Luna: So the testimonials reinforce the value story. Lucas: Exactly. And the results speak for themselves. Her average project value went from about three thousand dollars to over seven thousand. She went from 20 projects a year to about 12. So she actually worked fewer hours for more money. Luna: That's the dream. But I imagine some listeners are thinking — my clients would never pay that. Lucas: Jenna thought that too. She told me she almost didn't make the change because she was scared of pricing herself out. But she ran a test. She kept her old pricing page live and created a new version password-protected. She sent the new link to five past clients and asked what they thought. Three said the prices seemed high but made sense given the value description. One said they'd buy the eight-thousand-dollar tier if they had a project. None said it was ridiculous. Luna: That's a smart way to test without risking your current traffic. Lucas: And it gave her the confidence to launch. The first month, she got two inquiries for the eight-thousand-dollar tier and one for the two-thousand. That already matched her old monthly revenue. By month three, she'd signed a Strategic Partnership client. Luna: So the anchor tier did its job even if few bought it. Lucas: Exactly. The twenty-thousand-dollar tier made the eight-thousand-dollar one look reasonable. And it also served as a filter. Clients who even inquired about that tier were usually startups with funding or established companies with budget. Those conversations were different — they were about strategic impact, not hourly rates. Luna: Did she have to change her delivery or scope to justify the higher prices? Lucas: Not really. She already did good work. The difference was in how she communicated it. For the Quick Win, she'd previously charge hourly and send an invoice for twenty hours at seventy-five dollars. Now she charged a flat two thousand and delivered the same work in maybe fifteen hours. The client felt they got a deal, and she made more per hour. Luna: So it's a win-win if you frame it right. Lucas: And the client perception shifted too. When you pay by the hour, you're watching the clock. Every question or revision costs more. With a flat fee, the client focuses on the outcome. She said clients were actually happier because they didn't feel nickel and dimed. Luna: I can see that. I've had that feeling on the client side — when a freelancer sends an itemized bill with 15-minute increments, it creates tension. Lucas: And on the freelancer side, it removes the anxiety of tracking every minute. She told me she used to stress about whether a quick phone call should be billed. Now she doesn't even think about it. She just does what's needed to deliver the outcome. Luna: That kind of mental freedom is valuable in itself. Lucas: Absolutely. And here's a detail I loved: she added a FAQ section that directly addressed the price objection. One question was 'Why is this so expensive?' Her answer: 'Because I work with a limited number of clients and focus on results, not hours. Most clients see a return on investment within 30 days.' That's confident and specific. Luna: So she preempted the objection before it even came up in a sales call. Lucas: Exactly. And it worked. She said after the change, she rarely had to negotiate. Clients either said yes or moved on. No more back and forth about rates. Luna: I think a lot of solopreneurs, especially service providers, undervalue the pricing page as a sales tool. They treat it like a formality. Lucas: They do. And it's a missed opportunity. Your pricing page is often the highest-intent page on your site. Someone lands there because they're considering hiring you. If the page confuses them or makes them feel like a commodity, you lose them. Luna: So what's the one takeaway for someone listening who wants to try this? Lucas: First, kill hourly billing if you can. It's the single biggest constraint on income. Second, create three tiers with a high anchor that you don't expect many to buy. Third, write every tier as an outcome, not a list of deliverables. And fourth, test it with a small group before you go live. Luna: Solid advice. And I'd add: don't be afraid to raise prices. Your best clients will pay more for clarity and confidence. Lucas: That's exactly right. And you know, thinking about this conversation and the value that shows like this provide for solopreneurs — it's the kind of thing that makes a real difference in someone's business. Luna: Yeah, these episodes take time to research and produce. And they remain ad-free because of listener support. Lucas: A couple of dollars a month is genuinely what keeps these going. If you've gotten something out of them, buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It helps us keep doing episodes like this one. Luna: Totally. And now back to the pricing page. One thing I want to dig into: the language Jenna used. Did she just change the numbers, or did she rewrite the copy? Lucas: She rewrote everything. The old page had phrases like 'I will deliver X deliverables in Y weeks'. The new page said 'You will get a conversion-optimized design that increases your signups'. It's all about the client's benefit. Luna: That's a subtle but powerful shift. It changes the conversation from 'what I do' to 'what you get'. Lucas: Exactly. And she also added a guarantee. Not a money-back guarantee, but a satisfaction guarantee: if she doesn't meet the agreed scope within the flat fee, she works extra hours at no charge. That de-risks the decision for the client. Luna: Interesting. So she takes on the risk of scope creep, which makes clients more comfortable paying a higher upfront fee. Lucas: And in practice, it rarely happened because she's good at scoping. But just having it there increased her close rate significantly. Luna: So the pricing page isn't just a list of prices. It's a persuasion tool. Lucas: It's the most important page on your site if you're a service provider. Jenna's story is proof that a single page can double your income. It's not about working harder. It's about communicating your value clearly.